VRML H-Anim avatars

[jakerockwell]

I was wondering if it is possible to generate VRML based H-Anim avatars with Seamless3D. If so, how is it done?

To illustrate what I mean by a VRML H-Anim avatar, please see:
- VRML example: www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/vr/humanoid/raven/raven.wrl
- Source code: www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/vr/@vr-humanoid-raven.txt

Thanks in advance.

[thyme]

Welcome to the seamless forum jakerockwell

Very sorry for answering this a few days late, its been a while since I seen posts down here
Seamless supports the new standard for H_Anim 2 avatars. (or at least 3 of the nodes) All you have to do here is open the Settings window:

www.seamless3d.com/tut/settings

and check genHAnimNodes

Then when you go to output a wrl Seamless3d will convert all Seamless nodes to HAnim nodes. The Part nodes will be converted to HAnimJoint nodes and the Morpher nodes will be converted to HAnimDisplacer nodes. Joint node are suported by contact 6 and up but if you know of a browser that supports HAnimDisplacers too please let me know I have not found one yet but seamless can Render the output files which uses these nodes.
Perhaps the latest Xj3D browser can now render HAnimDisplacers, I will have to take a look soon.
If you have any more questions please don't hesitate to write back.
regards
thyme

[fabricator]

Hi Thyme and everyone

Is there any documentation, tutorials or examples on these Morpher nodes ?

The seamless avatar file I am working with at the moment exports fine as h-anim, but the shoulders have the wrong default position. So the existing animations I have come out wrong when I paste them into the file. Any ideas on how to fix this, reset rotations just positions the arms in the wrong direction (outwards instead of down).

[thyme]

Hi Fabricator welcome to the seamless forum
I have for some time wanted to write tutorials for how to utilize the morpher node. Because of you interests I have written a very simple short tutorial showing the basics in how to set up a morpher node using build nodes to generate a simple mouth and a smile mouth shape. I have tested this example when output as H-Anim nodes by opening the output wrl into seamless. The animation for the HAnimDisplacer seems to work fine. Please check out the new tutorial at:

www.seamless3d.com/tut/node/morpher.html

In regard to the arms not pointing downwards to the default H-Anim standard, this is because all the examples of avatars I have made so far have the arms pointing out horizontally same as a blaxxun avatar studio avatar when the angle for the shoulder's rotation = 0
It is easy to make it so the shoulders are rotated downwards using a Place node ( have the staticTransform unchecked) as one of the last build nodes but this would not remedy the problem if you want the arms to strictly conform to the H-Anim standard were an angle of 0 means your arms will point downwards. This could be achieved by building the arms for the avatar so that the shoulders are generated to point downwards to begin with before any parts are centered for animation.
Making the shoulders curved like this at the time of building the avatar would have the disadvantage of the shoulders probably distorting more when the arms are raised in animation but would have the advantage of probably being less distorted when in the default position.
I would like to try this some time so if it is important to you to have an avatar strictly conform to the H-Anim standard, when I can find the time I will try to write an example of an avatar with the arms bent down using a CCBend (CC = Circular Curve) or perhaps the new node I am currently working on an ECBend (EC = Elliptical Curve) .

[mars]

hello fabrictor,
although quite new to seamless, i too have had a problem with the shoulders importing too close to the body, i managed to solve this by moving the parts in seamless. does this problem have to do with scale orientation perhaps?
in some applications scaling bones is what one gets when one moves pivot points. that is when one moves a shoulder link in order that arms do not grow in length they are scaled. this is the case with max for instance. so a translation is really a scale. does this occur in the wrl you are exporting/importing or is it something which seamless does?

[Ayiki]

hello all,
Thyme this link seems to be dead:
www.seamless3d.com/tut/morpher/index.html

[thyme]

Thanks Ayiki


This is the very real big drawback of changing links at a whim hehe but then its better to change things sooner than later. Earlier in the year when working on my site I came to the conclusion my site would be more nicely structured if I had all the Seamless nodes documented and contained in this new single folder

www.seamless3d.com/tut/node

I have fixed the link that's wrong here on the forum too:

www.seamless3d.com/tut/node/morpher.html

thanks much Ayiki I appreciate your help

Hope in the not to distant future I will find the time to resume getting them "All" documented but for now any questions asked about any node or field I will be happy to reply. Most of what is not documented is related to what already has been and so should be relatively simple to explain. Please if you try my morpher node example, I would love to hear from you (or anyone) about your experience with it and how you understood it or did not understand something. It would be most interesting I think to hear seamless concepts explained in words from a different angle besides mine.